by Joseph Malek

Created on: April 03, 2009   Last Updated: April 18, 2009

There are four major theories about the eventual extinction of those animals that we refer to as being dinosaurs. Such extinction theories include a natural disaster, a change of the World's climate or a disease, and it is also possible that some of those dinosaurs evolved into a different kind of animal. Then again, it is entirely possible that all four events played a part in the disappearance of those animals that we came to know as dinosaurs.

Back in 1998 scientists discovered evidence of an asteroid or a comet that struck Argentina about 3.3 million years ago. That was supposedly enough to deposit a layer of escoria within the region. It was also determined that a localized extinction of most living things also was the result of that event.

So too, 65 million years ago another such event occurred in the area of the Yucatan Peninsula that might have also caused a change of the climate. This theory is now being studied as the most significant factor that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs on a World-wide scale.

In regard to climate change, it is entirely possible that the Earth's temperature cooled, causing the once tropical climates where dinosaurs most concentrated, population wise, to no longer support a group of animals who were unable to adapt to such a rapid change of an environment that we are most accustomed to living within. So you know, most dinosaurs are cold-blooded animals. When the single land mass broke up it is entirely possible that those migrating land masses that went eith South or North now became so cols, on a seasonal basis, that also caused to deaths of dinosaurs that were trapped on those migrating land masses.

Let us now forget that a host of other natural disasters that remain undiscovered could have also made a contribution to the end of those prehistoric creatures. It is also true that the movements of the Continents, over time, put an end to those dinosaurs that could not go to a more pleasing climate. As a matter of fact, dinosaur fossils were found in the polar regions of our Earth. There is also evidence that some kinds of dinosaurs did migrate with the passage of the seasons.

It is also entirely possible that a virus or some such disease killed a whole lot of those dinosaurs as well. Even now, there are no known cures for many of the viruses that currently kill all kinds of animals and plants on our Earth today.

Last but not least, it is also claimed that many different kinds of dinosaurs evolved into a different kind of animal. As an example, some paleontologists claim that the bird hip variety of some such animals became what we see as birds within our environment.

There is one thing that you can be most certainly sure about is that the fossil record will become bigger as additional information is added to the total known knowledge of the creatures that we know as dinosaurs.

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